After a long hiatus ... I was able to sweet Talk Don back into a wine review ... it won't be weekly, but we are shooting for once a month! So now we are just drinking the wine ... with less pressure!!My New Years resolution…

Have you tried any of these wines? The Prisoner, Earthquake,
Skinny Girl, Layer Cake, Yellow Tail…or any of a 1,000 other similar brands? Do
you know what they have in common? That was a hint by the way, here is another…"Sherman
set the Wayback to the mid 70’s". Starsky and Hutch just ended and Welcome Back
Kotter is next up. During the commercial
break Ricardo Montalban sidles up ever so elegantly in his white three piece suit
next to a Chrysler Cordoba, motioning us to open the door and experience the “Rich
Corinthian Leather” within. Did you guess? Fact of the matter is... there is no
such thing as “Rich Corinthian Leather”. It was simply a marketing phrase spun
by some clever fellow at an Ad agency (perhaps Darren Stevens of McMann and
Tate) to help move units. That same creative marketing is what the wines
mentioned above are all about. They are clever brands, fabricated for the quick
sale. The grapes are bought en masse from multiple vineyards, homogeneously blended
to appeal to a humongous consumer market and could all be described in five
words or less; Dark fruit, Vanilla, and Cocoa for reds; Buttery, Oaky, Vanilla
for whites. They don’t reflect the soil or climatic characteristics of any
particular vineyard, they have near zero nuance and are on a whole as boring as
C-SPAN.

Why say all this…because of my New Years resolution of
course. Drink (emphasis) and Write about compelling wines. Wines that reflect a
place, tell a story and bring a little sumpin', sumpin' to the palate. You may
have to look beyond Kroger or Big Al’s house of booze to find them and they may
take a shekel or two more from your purse to purchase, but they will be worth
it. Life is short, lets enjoy some interesting wines this year and have some
fun…whaddya say?

The 2005 Chateau Talbot is NOT a silky smooth bordeaux. It IS an elegant representation of the gravelly riverfront soil of Saint-Julien in which the grapes were grown. It's garnet in color with Ruby edges, has a dusty rose and blackberry with a hint of strawberry nose. It has a dry tannic mouthfeel with tastes of leather, raspberries, gravel and cedar.Life is Short. Enjoy the Wine.DM